Singular and Plural
by NightSpear
Summary: Coda for "Mystery Spot." Dean thinks at first that it's a good thing Sam has changed, because it means he'll be able to keep going when Dean's dead. And then he starts to have some doubts. One-shot.


Title: Singular and Plural

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of materialistic value from this.

Pairings: Gen

Notes: Takes place after "Mystery Spot."

XXXXXXXXXX

The room is empty when Dean wakes up, and he doesn't panic, really. It's not uncommon for Sam to wake up first and go for a coffee run. It's not like Dean's the one with some kind of violent separation anxiety recently. Besides, Sam's old backpack that he's had for nearly ten years is still on the table next to the laptop.

Thirty minutes later, Dean is still not smelling coffee and Sam is still not back, which he really should be, since there's a coffee shop not two blocks away. Dean doesn't grumble much as he dresses and decides to go looking, because the way Sam's acting has been freaking him out just a little, ever since that thing with the Trickster, the case they were working with the missing man they never actually found, and the Mystery Spot that they never actually visited.

It's when he reaches for the car keys that he starts to think something might be wrong, because they're not where he left them the night before. And then he rushes out to the parking lot, only to give himself a mental smack over the head, because apparently, Sam's been there the whole time. And then he sees the car, and...

"Uh, Sam?" he ventures, eyes wary. "What are you doing?"

There's no answer, and at first he thinks his brother didn't hear, so he takes a few steps closer and finds his own hunting knife pointed at his throat. "Whoa! Jesus Christ, Sam!"

Sam has this look of surprise and confusion, and then it turns into shock as he drops the knife to the asphalt and backs up so fast he almost falls into the trunk. Dean almost wishes he had his cell phone on him so he could take a picture, but Sam's face is so horror-struck it's not really all that funny.

"Hey, my knife," Dean says, a little weirded out but also indignant at the treatment his blade got, and he's wondering why Sam pulled Dean's instead of his own. He bends down to pick it up, and a little twitch is the only warning he gets before Sam is suddenly between him and the blade, knocking his hand away and retrieving it himself. "Wow, okay. You are such a freak."

"I'll make sure it's sharpened before we leave," Sam tells him, his voice flat. "Sorry. Didn't want you to get cut." Dean rolls his eyes, affronted at the implication that he's clumsy enough to cut himself on a weapon he knows as well as his own hand, but his brother's not looking at him as he turns back to the trunk that he's been messing around in.

Well, _messing around_ is probably the wrong phrase to use, because that? Is anything but a mess.

"Are you, like, alphabetizing our stuff?" Dean asks.

"No," Sam says.

"Well, then...?" Sam doesn't fill in the blank as expected, so Dean prompts again, "What is all this?"

"Alphabetization isn't that useful. It's better to have things organized according to their use." Which, okay, isn't illogical, but they've been driving around for over two years, and Dean's way of doing it—that is, making sure the matches aren't sitting in lighter fluid and otherwise throwing things in—has been working fine. If it'll make Sam less jumpy, though, he'll leave him to it.

It creeps him out, though, because, the precision in Sam's movements as he shifts each object into place is a little too practiced and a lot familiar to Dean. "Dude, when did you channeling Dad?"

Sam fiddles around a little more, then slams the trunk shut. "That a bad thing?"

"Well...it's just..." Dean stares at Sam's expressionless face for a few seconds, then shakes his head. "Never mind." He doesn't really know what to say, but he does know Sam will pick at it until he explains.

Except Sam just tightens his jaw and goes back into the motel room, and Dean's left standing next to a car with a trunk full of weapons, books, and objects that are arranged according to their use.

He doesn't think anything's happened to cause this change, except that thing where Sam apparently saw him die every day until he got out of the time-loop he was stuck in. It doesn't sound any less crazy now than it did when Sam first told him, but he remembers the Trickster and the way Sam looked mad enough to kill that day, and he doesn't doubt it happened. Dean decides, as he follows his brother through the door, that it's a good thing Sam's gotten even more serious about this than he was before. They're looking at war, after all, and if they can't find a way to break his deal, it's good to know Sam will ready for it when Dean's dead. At least Sam will keep living.

XXXXXXXXXX

"_...Ergo, draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica, adjuramus te..."_

Dean didn't realize it before, but sometime between their last exorcism and this one, Sam memorized the entire ritual. Dean has a well-worn journal in his hands and is trying to hand it to his brother so he can read it off and send the demon back to hell. Sam doesn't even acknowledge it before he starts chanting. But it's not just memorized—it's rattled off, smooth and _fast_, like something Sam's done dozens of times before. And they _have_ been doing it more, what with the army of demons that got out of Hell, but just a few weeks ago, Sam was reading it out of the book, his words careful. Not like the way he's doing it now, all speed and confidence with a familiarity that scares Dean, because he doesn't know where it came from. There was a little stumble at the beginning, but it's been all flawless since then.

"..._sub potenti manu dei, contremisce et effuge..."_

The body that the demon's possessing doesn't look very athletic, but demonic strength is nothing to scoff at. They didn't have time before to finish drawing a Devil's Trap, but Dean realizes now why Sam wasn't too worried before. As the demon's host pulls away, howling, Dean moves to try to stop it, but Sam's longer legs get there first. The two crash to the floor with Sam's arms wrapped around the demon's, and the chanting only gets louder and more furious.

Dean hovers, feeling thoroughly useless and not a little disturbed, until the demon pours out of the host's screaming mouth. Sam holds his position a moment longer, panting from exertion, then pushes himself off. He touches two fingers to the man's carotid, then stands and begins to head out the building they cornered the demon in.

"Wait, hold on," Dean says, "what about him?"

Sam stops. Says, "I'm getting the shovel and the salt. There's a field out in back."

Dean gapes as Sam opens the trunk pulling out both items and some spare gasoline. All three are in the same spot and easy to find, he notices, because Sam already organized the trunk according to use.

He grabs another shovel to help dig and begins to think that maybe this new Sam isn't a good thing. His brother keeps startling when they bump into each other in the shallow, makeshift grave, as if not expecting another person to be there. Dean realizes then that Sam's stumble in the beginning of the exorcism was a verb conjugation error—he started out using the singular _I_ instead of the plural _we_.

XXXXXXXXXX

Dean curses himself and resolves to stop making jokes about Sam's compulsive organization, because his brother's bleeding in the bathroom with a bullet still inside him, and Dean's out here doing his impression of a flustered chicken looking for where the hell they put the damn first-aid kit.

Eventually, he takes a breath and calms down enough to remember that they left it in the bathroom. He pushes through the door without looking at Sam, who's sitting and being oddly complacent on the closed toilet seat, and opens the cabinet under the sink, where he finds...nothing.

Desperate now, he asks, "Sam, do you know where..." He trails off, because he's staring at a bloody bullet by the sink, with a pair of bloody tweezers and an open bottle of peroxide next to it. His heart beats faster as he turns around to look at his brother.

Sam's got the goddamn kit on his lap, and, Jesus Christ, he's already started sewing through his own skin with one hand, a bloody towel in the other sopping up the blood that drips into the stitches. "What the hell are you doing!" Dean yells, stopping himself just short of ripping the needle out of his brother's hands, only because he might rip something else, too, in the process. "Sam, stop that, let me..."

"Dean, you have a concussion," Sam says evenly, though Dean can hear the pain leaking through the tightly uttered words, and his forehead is wet with sweat. "You should be sitting down. I'll be out in a minute."

"Like hell!" Dean has forgotten about the concussion until now, but it isn't really all that bad, even though Sam didn't let him drive on their way back here. "Sam, you can't do this yourself!" He sees the needle pull out and pause, and he reaches out and grabs his brother's hand. He's afraid there'll be a fight over this, but Sam stops—freezes completely—and doesn't resist when Dean gently maneuvers the needle away. Sam's hand drops slowly to his lap, fisting in the bloody towel. He doesn't meet Dean's eyes.

"I forgot," Sam says, and Dean's not sure what it is he means.

By the time it's done, Dean is starting to feel his head spinning. They support each other out of the bathroom and each collapses on a bed. Neither of them has said another word, Dean too disoriented—more by his brother than by the concussion—and Sam stony-faced and unreadable. That alarms Dean more than anything, because he's never in his life been unable to read Sam until now.

He doesn't know what happened.

Dean finds out he said it out loud when Sam murmurs from the other bed, "You died. That's what happened."

"I know how you feel, Sam. I understand. But..."

"No, Dean. You don't understand. It was different." Sam's voice isn't angry or combative; it's only tired in a way he's never heard Sam sound. "I keep forgetting now." Dean thinks maybe there's something he doesn't understand, after all.

As he closes his eyes over the pounding from his concussion, Dean realizes for the second time that he doesn't want to die, because if this is what happens when he does, then Sam won't have died, but he won't be living, either.


End file.
